Elon Musk Meets Indian Business Leaders At Space X's Starbase, Urges For Stronger US-India Commerce

Elon Musk on Saturday emphasised the need to lower trade barriers and enhance commerce between India and the US. He said this to a delegation of Indian business leaders who, in a first-of-its-kind meet, met Musk at Space X's Starbase in Texas.

"Things are trending positive. I’m certainly in favour of lowering trade barriers to increase commerce between the US and India,” Musk said.

In the past, Donald Trump has accused New Delhi of imposing higher tariffs on the goods imported from the US, calling India “tariff king”.

In 2018, in his first presidency, Trump was unhappy with the import tariffs charged on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, calling it "unfair". India charged 100% tariff on the motorcycles imported with an engine capacity of over 800cc.

In response to this, India slashed the tariffs by 50%. However, Trump found it insufficient and wanted a complete reciprocity, citing that US imposed no tariffs on Indian motorcycle imports.

Trump has not just indicated to impose heavy tariffs on India, but also on other nations including Canada, Mexico and China.

While Canada, as a developed nation, may withstand heavy tariffs, economies of developing countries like India, Mexico, and China could be negatively impacted by such measures.

Ritesh Agarwal, founder and chief executive officer of OYO, shared his delighted experience of meeting Musk in Texas.

"Elon is by far doing the most to evolve humankind or as Peter Thiel says has us closest to getting flying cars," Agarwal wrote on X.

Agarwal also shared some comments made by Musk during the hour-long conversation. He claimed that the Tesla founder said "India evokes the emotion of Ancient and 'Great' Civilization".

Musk, according to Agarwal, also said that it "feels we are living in a simulation". During the meeting, he further shared that the pursuit of interplanetary living was "super critical" to him.